


Everything Is Alright

by astraLazuli



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 05:31:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4509690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astraLazuli/pseuds/astraLazuli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two kids who never sleep, a broken bowl, and a life long struggle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Is Alright

Your name is Dave Strider and you are currently asleep. Or rather, that’s what you should be. Instead, you are lying awake in bed for only god fucking knows how many nights it’s been at this point. That’s a lie. It’s been five days. You know. But, you guess, the turn of phrase can be let go since you are technically a god yourself. Or were one. Whatever. The point is that no matter how damn fuzzy everything starts getting after a couple nights, your grasp on time never ever slips in the slightest. It just keeps ticking on inside your brain like some supernatural metronome that refuses to ever leave you alone. Thanks to that, you know it’s been almost 120 hours since you actually properly slept. Sure you’ve gotten a couple winks here or there, but they’ve really only been enough to keep you alive and remotely functional, for an extremely loose definition of functional. You haven’t been in decent enough shape to leave the house for a couple of days and earlier Jade had to stop you from eating the cardboard along with the frozen pizza you had for dinner. You think that you might be getting off topic when you realize that there never was a topic because you are still just staring dazedly at your ceiling at two o’clock in the morning.

You sigh and roll your eyes, flipping over on to your side. You squeeze your lids shut, trying desperately to ignore the glaring red numbers on your bedside clock. You learned a long time ago that paying any attention to them was completely counterproductive when it came to trying to sleep since all they did was remind you of how long you’ve been awake which you always already know anyway so it’s really just an exercise in frustration. With a groan, you attempt to push the thought of the clock from your mind because now all that you can think about is those beady red lights winking at you mockingly. If they had a voice, they’d be Nelson Muntz, chanting “You’re a loser who can’t sleep, ha haw!” No, you are supposed to not be thinking about the stupid clock and you certainly aren’t supposed to be personifying it as an obnoxious cartoon character. You are going to sleep now, damn it.

Sweeping aside the irrational anger at inanimate objects, you take a deep breath through your nose, slowly counting to five as you release it. Just focus on your breathing, on the slow in and out, on those counts to five. Let everything else just melt away, which is a ridiculous concept even though the possibility of the walls starting to melt is becoming more and more plausible to you the longer you go without sleeping. Wait. No, you’re focusing on your breath. In and out. One, two, three, four, five. The sensation of simultaneous heaviness and lightness creeps into your limbs as you breathe, making it feel as though you are floating above your body that is bolted to the bed. Everything begins to go sort of hazy, the feeling of the bed beneath you melting away, your consciousness fading into a vague sort of rocking.

_CRACK!_

You sit bolt upright as you are yanked full force back into the land of the properly waking, your heart pounding in your chest. Throwing back the blankets, you creep to your bedroom door, grabbing your sword on your way. You continue to the hall and down the stairs, your ears straining to pick up any more sounds. You think you might hear a faint, muffled noise, but in the ringing silence of the night you can’t really be sure. You stick close to the edge of the stairs, trying to avoid every possible creek. You reach the bottom and softly pad your way towards the kitchen, tightening your grip on your sword. Okay, for sure now that had to be something in the kitchen, no way your mind was imagining that sound. With a deep breath, you round the final corner, sword held at the ready.

It takes a moment for your brain to absorb the scene. A glass dish lays in a pile of shards all over the kitchen floor and tucked against the cabinets in the corner is Jade. She is curled up, knees pulled tight to her chest with one arm wrapped around them, the other’s hand clamped tight over her mouth. Her shoulders heave with a sob that catches in her hand, her face is wet with tears. She looks up, eyes glowing all the greener for how fiercely bloodshot they are, when your sword slips from your fingers with a loud clang as you flashstep to her side.

 

\----------

 

Your name is Jade Harley and you are a generally happy five-year-old. You live on a bright island in the middle of the ocean where it is always warm and almost always sunny. Sure, sometimes you get a little lonely without other kids to play with, but it doesn’t bother you that much. You have Grandpa and Bec and they both love you something fierce and you love them back just the same.

This day is nearly cloudless and you are sitting in the grass near the lagoon. Your fingers fidget over Grandpa’s pistols, tracing the delicate filigree work, memorizing the tiny designs. Your hand slips and there is a loud bang and a flash of green light.

Your are nine years old and feelings of loneliness have long since faded to a dull background noise, something barely even worth noticing. It’s just you and Bec and that is just a fact of life, nothing to really get worried about. Besides, you still can go and talk to Grandpa whenever you want, even if he rarely answers. He’ll always set aside his current party to listen to you babble about your day. Or, at least, that’s what you like to think that he does. And even if Grandpa can only listen to you, Bec still takes good care of you. He watches over you and tucks you into bed and tries his darnedest to keep you away from the frog temple in the lagoon. He is a very good dog and your very best friend. Plus you have all the Prospitians to keep you company and teach you and take care of you while you sleep. So really, things are perfectly okay. And they are going to get better! You saw in Skaia’s clouds visions of brightly coloured words speaking of friends miles and miles away. You’re just waiting for the package to arrive so that you can finally find them.

You are thirteen years old and you are so excited you can barely stand it! You and your friends are going to play a game together and you will finally get to meet them and you just cannot wait. It’ll be so nice to get to see them all in person and introduce them to Bec and prove you’re not lying about Hellmurder Island as Dave likes to call it. And to not have to keep secrets anymore! Because in just a few hours, everything that you Know will happen so they will all know about it too and you’ll be able to explain how you knew everything and why you had to keep everything secret.

You are thirteen years old and everything has gone horribly wrong. John didn’t wake up in time and now your dreamself is dead. Suddenly, you can’t see a single thing ahead of you and everything, every single thing, is chaos, darkness pressing in against your face, suffocating you. You know exactly jack shit about what’s going on anymore. You try your best to deal with it, to handle things, to push on. You prototype your sprite with your dead dreamself, hoping for some clarity but only finding yourself faced with everything you hate about yourself, every sob, every whimper, every weakness. You can hardly stand the sight of yourself. Or, herself. Because she’s you but she’s not you. Not anymore. She can’t be. She’s completely useless.

You are thirteen years old and you are standing in the freezing cold of your land in the fanciest dress that you’ve ever dreamed of. You are with Dave, finally, after all these years, and you are searching for frogs because of course your quest has something to do with frogs of all things. The heaviness lifts a bit, pushed aside by his sarcastic, deadpan comments and the flashes of silliness he doesn’t even realize are slipping through.

But then everything turns into a blur as Bec Noir descends upon the two of you. Everything is sounds and light and the feeling of your rifle plugging away as you try to defend yourself and Dave from this creature you never intended to help create. There is a crackle of green and then everything is silence and it takes a moment for you to realize that it’s because Bec Noir is gone and Dave is falling to the ground. Blood pours from numerous wounds, staining his shirt and the surrounding snow a nauseating bright, rich red. He coughs and blood seeps from his mouth and your heart is in your throat as you collapse next to him, pulling him close to you, and he slips away in mere moments. You fight pointlessly against the tears and the sobs that come as you lean forward and press your lips to his, knowing this is his last hope.

You are thirteen years old and you are a god. Every fiber of the universe, of every universe, runs through your being and there is nearly nothing that is outside of your power. You did it. At the last moment, all the pieces fell into place, both of the plan and of yourself, and that joy pulses through you. You are alive, your friends are alive, you kept your promise, and now you get three years to spend with your brother and your best friend of sorts. Your spirit lifts in a way you never thought possible and you finally get to know what it’s like without that loneliness constantly throbbing in the back of your mind.

Your are thirteen years old and that which you have loved has been taken from you. You are sitting on the couch in one of the kitchens on the ship, having just said a quick goodbye to John and Davesprite before shrinking them down for an excursion to the Land of Wind and Shade. You flip through a well worn book, your mind drifting off with the words, when there comes a terrible smash. You are on your hands and knees, tears streaming down your cheeks, staring disconsolately at the black smudge on the carpet, all that is left of the only two friends left to you for the next three years. Nanasprite comes by and tries to comfort you, but there is nothing that can be said that will make this loss any more bearable.

You are fifteen years old and you have been alone again for years. Well, not entirely alone as you still have Nanasprite and Jaspersprite and all the consorts, but you have never felt more lonely in your life. There is not a single thing that any one of them can do that will lift this heaviness from your chest. For all that you try to smile when anyone is around, it crushes down on you, wearing on your limbs like weights, dulling every thought in your mind. You spend a lot of your time sitting in what used to be your greenhouse, where no one can reach you. You sit leaned against one of the tables, dead vines catching in your hair, and you vaguely think that you ought to do something about these plants. You ought to love to do something about them, you really should. But this thought just floats about in your mind causing a sense of irritation that only serves to conflict with the in your bones tiredness that follows you everywhere. There is a weight, a twisting in your stomach, as it all becomes overwhelming and you start to cry, not even sure over which thing this time.

You are sixteen years old and you keep telling yourself that everything is going to be okay. Even if you don’t really believe it, it has to be. Soon you will get to see your other friends and you won’t have to be alone anymore. You won’t have to wait much longer and then everything will be okay, you will be able to be you again when you have someone to be you around. You know you should be more excited about this, but all that you can muster is a sort of weak relief in the form of what feels like something caught in your throat.

You are sixteen years old and it is finally over. The game has been won and you are with your friends and it is over. God, that word is the sweetest sound to your ears. Over, over, over. Your joy can barely be contained, it bubbles over the top, exudes from your every pore. You are always hugging someone, leaning against someone, your fingers twined with someone else’s. You don’t want to let them go; there’s a quiet voice in your mind that is terrified that if you don’t hold onto them, they’ll disappear again.

You are eighteen years old when it happens for the first time. You’re in the middle of your first semester of college doing a double major and you cannot sit still. You have so much to do and no time to do it but it’s okay, because you are Jade Harley and Jade Harley can do anything. You stay up all night studying and working on papers and lab reports. Dave stays up with you, flipping through his anthropology textbook or absentmindedly mixing together small snippets of music. He says that he can’t stand to let you stay up all by yourself being all lonely and stuff, but you’ve lived in the same house as him for over two years and you’re absolutely certain he wouldn’t be sleeping anyway. John always makes fun of you both in the mornings after a long night, completely baffled by the concept of sleeping less than a solid eight hours a night. You just grin and take the travel mug of coffee Rose offers you and kiss John on the cheek before running off to class. Doesn’t he know that girl geniuses don’t need to sleep?

You are nineteen years old and in your second semester of college and you haven’t been to class in weeks. You’re sleeping ten to twelve hours a night but you still are always tired and one day the thought of going to class is so exhausting you start to cry. You write it off to overwork and give yourself permission to take a sick day. The sick day turns into days which turn into weeks which slide into months. The more time passes, the more difficult it is to even pretend to try to convince yourself to go back. You don’t admit to the others that you aren’t going. Your schedule this semester runs later in the day, so you sleep in and just before anyone else gets home, you get dressed and put up your hair and smile and make up stories about things that happened during classes. When you’re supposed to be in night class, you pack up your bag and drive your car to the nearest flower shop. Even though it’s winter, you spend all night stalking the aisles of the gardening store, staring at packets of flower seeds that won’t even be ready to be planted for another month and a half. You go home and tell Dave that you have a lot of homework to do and lock yourself in your room and spend hours flipping through the internet, reading whatever stupid thing comes across your path and wondering why you spend all your time on things you don’t care about and none on things that you think you should.

You are nineteen years old and things are starting to look up. You’ve started a new semester and you’re attending classes and everyone loves you, your teachers, your classmates; you’re the most charming person in the room. You start to stay up late again with Dave, working fervently at whatever your most recent project is. In addition to school, you’ve built a small greenhouse out back and planted a winter garden and written and recorded a whole album’s worth of songs with Dave and learned how to knit from Rose. The possibilities of the world are endless before you and for the first time since the game ended, you feel like the god you are.

You are twenty years old and you’re crashing. You don’t know what happened but everything is wrong. There is not a single thing in the world that can hold your interest for more than five seconds because your mind refuses to focus for any longer. You are tired to your very core but you cannot sit still. You jiggle your leg, you pace, you fidget, and even these small movements exhaust you. You spend half the day in bed but sleep less than three hours at a time because your brain just won’t shut up, it never shuts up, and it isn’t even thinking anything productive, it’s all crap. There isn’t a thought left in you that has any use to it.

 

\---------

 

Your name is Jade Harley and you are staring blankly at your bedroom ceiling. You should have been asleep hours ago but you gave up on the hope that that would ever happen long, long ago. You aren’t really sure why you even bother to go to bed anymore when all that ever comes of it is this useless staring and tossing and turning. You guess it’s because you just get so bored with everything in the actual world that sleep seems like a good distraction even if it hardly ever comes. But really, now you’re even more bored, stripped of the superficial level of distraction that at least browsing the internet or watching Netflix could bring. Without those, you’re just left with the buzzing inside your mind, the constant barrage of half-formed thoughts that creep under your skin, making your whole existence feel like an itch that can never be scratched.

You grumble irritably and roll over on your side, staring now at the blinding green numbers on your alarm clock. 1:52am. You grumble some and flip onto your stomach, burying your face in your pillow. You lay like that for a while before your chest starts to hurt and you give up on that lying position just as you give up on every position after a maximum of ten minutes. You turn back over onto your back. Constellations of glow in the dark stars blink back at you. With a sigh, you decide that you simply can no longer stand this tossing and turning nonsense, you need to actually move.

You peel back the covers and slip out of the bed, tiptoeing down the hall and the stairs to the kitchen, careful so as not to wake the others. Another half-formed thought smashes through to the front of your consciousness and it dawns on you that you really need brownies, like, right now. Brownies sound like the absolute best idea that you have ever had. You buzz into the kitchen, climbing the counters to peer into the cabinets, frantically searching for a box of brownie mix. You finally find one, the last one. (A voice in the back of your head says you should mention this to Rose for the next grocery shopping trip before it spirals off into a barely coherent ramble of what other things you need from the store.) The box is thrown down on the counter as you immediately start digging through more cabinets and drawers, now searching for a whisk and oil and eggs and a bowl. Your body is moving quickly though your limbs feel like you a pulling them through molasses giving the impression that you are somehow ghosting your way through the kitchen, your body not moving as a whole but as a series of layers of yourself. You bump into things, unable to tell which layer of movement is the real one. The items all pile up around the box of brownie mix until only the bowl is left. You grab one from the cupboard and spin around back to the counter.

The bowl slips from your fingers. You fumble for it, feeling as though time is stretching, but there is nothing that you can do to stop it.

_CRACK!_

The bowl cleaves neatly in two for a brief moment before continuing to shatter. Glass shards spray across the floor, reaching into every corner, sliding under appliances. With the bowl, something inside of you breaks. You retreat back into the corner of the cabinets, sliding to the floor. The punch in your gut that has haunted you for weeks finds its way up into your throat and bursts from your lips. You quickly clamp a hand over your mouth to muffle the sob, curling in on yourself as tears begin to pour down your face. You have to keep quiet, you cannot wake the others, and you absolutely cannot let them see you like this. You’re supposed to be strong, invincible. They cannot see you crying over a broken bowl, they cannot know that you were up baking at this hour, because really what sane person would do that, and you have to be sane. Or, at least, maintain the facade that you are. You cannot let them find out what a fucking disaster you are. These thoughts just make the tears come more quickly and you feel like your chest is being torn apart.

_Clang!_

Your head shoots up, fingers still over your lips, and there is Dave, crouched next to you, his eyes, for once not hidden behind shades staring at you with every ounce of care the world has to offer. His swords lies discarded by the kitchen door. Oh no, oh god no, you’ve fucked up, he’s not supposed to see you like this, you are such a mess, how can you play this off, oh god, no no no….

“Jade?” he whispers “What happened? Are you alright?”

All thoughts of laughing this off, of pretending that nothing had happened and everything was fine suddenly vanishes. You are not alright. You haven’t been alright in years.

A sob sneaks its way past your fingers and you shake your head, blinking away another onslaught of tears.

“Jade…” Dave wraps his arms around you, and you nuzzle your face into his shoulder, still stifling sobs. He runs a hand over your head, gently stroking your hair. “Shhh….. shhh…. What’s wrong?”

You pull back to look at him, prying your fingers from your lips, and the dam breaks, a flood of words hurriedly spilling forth between choked sobs. “M-my brain won’t stop moving and it won’t shut up and I can’t keep still and I’m tired down to my bones and god, I can’t make any of it stop and I failed all of my classes this spring because I just couldn’t get myself to go and I can’t stop crying and I haven’t slept in forever and, and, and-” You break off, a wail eating up your words.

Dave pulls you back close, tenderly rubbing your back. “Shh… shh….. It’s gonna be okay, alright Jade? I promise it’s going to be okay….”

You can’t tell how long you sit like that, just crying hysterically as Dave rubs your back and whispers to you that everything will be alright. Slowly, the tears recede into small hiccups.

“Why didn’t you tell me about all this?” he asks in a hushed voice.

You bite your lip as the tear threaten to return. “I…. I didn’t want you to see me like this, all broken. I…. didn’t want to scare you away.”

“Jade, there is not a single thing you could do to scare me away, alright sweetheart?” he says, a slight hardness in his voice. “You can always tell me anything and I promise, I will not go away.”

You nod silently, not trusting yourself to speak.

Dave pulls away slightly to look at you, his eyes soft, and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. “Now, we need to get you to bed. You need sleep.” He stands and pulls you to your feet.

“Dave…?”

“Yeah?”

“....Can I sleep with you tonight? I…. I don’t want to be alone.”

There is a flash of a small smile. “Of course.” He looks around at the broken glass all over the floor. “Just let me clean this up quick, okay?”

“Okay,” you whisper.

You lean back on the counter as Dave takes a broom from the cupboard and quickly sweeps all the glass up into the trash bin. He then takes your hand in his and leads you upstairs to his bedroom. You crawl into bed, curling up against his chest.

“We’re going to figure this out, okay Harley? Everything is going to be alright,” he says quietly, stroking your hair and placing a kiss on your forehead.

“Okay,” you respond, not sure if that is even possible.

You shut your eyes and thankfully, for once, sleep comes with relative ease.


End file.
